Re: Looking for interactive programming with simple graphics like old CoCo BASIC or turbo pascal

[Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 11:18 PM, John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> wrote:
> Joel Rees writes:
>> Any other suggestions?
>
> Look at qtoctave and maxima.

Yeah, nice stuff, but more of the dog that bit him.

I think he's spoiled, in a sense. It's as if he thinks he knows that
the computer will figure all that hard stuff out for him, so he is
entirely unmotivated to understand the necessity of working through
the fundamental algebra.

And the excessive emphasis on rote learning in the Japanese schools
doesn't help at all.

The whole problem is that, if he takes the time to understand one
difficult problem, he won't have time to do that with every problem,
so he's scared to actually take the time to understand his math and
physics homework.

I'm looking for something that he could single-step through and watch
the function being analyzed and each point being drawn. Preferably by
code that he wrote himself.

I think the old perl/tk tutorials on the perl/tk site may do the job.

(Although, looking at this idea in the cold light of morning, I'm
going to have to be really careful how I approach this, so he doesn't
feel forced.)

--
Joel Rees